5 Oct 2006(Thu)

Tokyo, October 4, 2006: If you want to overdose on English football, there is no better place to be in Asia than Singapore.

Japan is quite good, too, but is an hour ahead of Singapore, making the kick-off times in England much more viewer-friendly down there in south-east Asia.Also, the English newspapers in Singapore are packed with reports and news from the English Premier League, or EPL as they call it.

I will stick with the Premier League, if you don't mind, as EPL is too much of a brand name, for marketing people, not football fans.

I have just returned from a long weekend in Singapore, where a popular topic of conversation was:Why are the Korean players more successful in England than the Japanese?

That is a good question, and a good topic for debate, so this was my response.

In general I think the Korean players are more robust, play a more physical game and can maintain a faster tempo for longer periods than the Japanese, I said.

I donft think the Koreans are better players technically, but they are more suited to the British style of play. They get stuck in and keep running, whereas the Japanese players who have gone to Europe tend to be more the fantasista types who can survive better in a more technical, slower league, such as Italy.

That was my assessment, based on watching the likes of Park, Seol and Lee at Manchester United, Reading and Spurs in recent weeks/months.

On the opposite side, take the case of Ahn Jung Hwan. Surely he has more natural talent and flair than any of these three, but he has failed miserably in Europe.

Ahn could not even make the grade with modest Perugia, where Hidetoshi Nakata excelled, of course, to earn a big-money move to Roma, and then struggled in France and Germany. The only foreign country where Ahn has been successful is Japan, as his game is more suited to this style of technical play.

I still think Japanese players can be a success in England, someone like Kaji for example.

For the time being, though, the football fans in Singapore are talking about Koreans, not Japanese. And you cannot really argue with that.

ends